How to create an ebook? Essential aspects of the ebook production process

Do you know how to create an ebook? Do you know all the essential aspects of an ebook production process? The process of book creation has several steps you have to follow. Do you know the best software to format and edit your text? Read the article and find out more.

How to create an ebook? – table of content:

How to create an ebook?
The content of an e-book and e-book creation
How to create an e-book with great images?
Combining text and images
How to publish and distribute an e-book?

How to create an ebook?

When e-books appeared on the market they were associated only with the electronic form of paper books. Currently, not only novels, handbooks and guides are available in the electronic format – all sorts of publications can be created and issued in this form, by anybody. Editing and publishing of an e-book is no longer difficult and you don’t have to be a computer pro to publish one: especially that there is so many free to download tools to help you with the process.

The process of creation of an e-book has several steps. The very first step is creation of content usually in the form of text accompanied with some graphics. The steps in e-book creation process are as follows:

preparation of well themed, interesting cover
text editing and formatting (desktop publishing)
file exporting into variety of formats such as: PDF, EPUB, MOBI
free distribution or sale.

The knowledge about well designed e-book creation has to be supported by familiarity with marketing techniques needed for promotion of the project.

The content of an e-book and e-book creation

Content of an e-book

The most important part of an e-book is its content. It can be created in many word-processing programs that can be downloaded from the internet or are available online. The most basic tools used for writing are programs from Microsoft Office and Google Doc packages. Those applications are particularly useful to create e-books since they allow edition of your files that can be done online, from any place and at any time.

Other applications that are worth our attention are Writers Blocks and Focus Writer. Both programs have simple and intuitive interface and allow constant reviewing of your e-book, which helps with correction in case of any errors.

How to write an ebook? Start with your chosen subject. Think what could be of interest for you clients. When you have all this laid down, plan the layout of your publication, think about chapters and subsections. Well-written, accurate plan will help you to draft a sound work schedule to work with, while composing your e-book.

Text edition

The edition of an e-book requires good quality word-processing program. It is not enough to know, how to publish an e-book, but some knowledge about desktop publishing process is necessary as well. One has to avoid not only spelling or grammatical errors but be aware of formatting mistakes as well. The PDF format, so frequently used for e-books, is popular for a reason – it helps to present the text in organized, well-structured way.

How to create an e-book with great images?

Apart from the written content, an e-book needs to have good quality cover. The cover draws the attention of the potential customers. How to create a cover for an e-book, that with the use of great graphics will capture the attention of many? The author, who wants to stand out from the crowd should use professional graphical tools such as: Coolors, Canva or Creative Market. More advanced technically individuals may use PhotoShop application.

The right colors have to be selected and the contrast have to be adjusted accordingly. If you don’t have your own images use the bank of pictures, but make sure that copyrights that are set for your image allow free usage. To search for good quality pictures go to: Pixabay, Pexels, Iconfinder or Librestock.

Combining text and images

When your cover and written content are ready, you may start to work on the typesetting and composition of your piece. At this stage all technical issues emerge and you have to deal with: numbering of pages, font types and sizes, arrangement of pictures, and sizes of margins.

The typesetting process of electronic version of book may be facilitated with specially designed tools. The aforementioned in the article application, Canva can be of great help with the task. Similarly, well-known Microsoft Power Point, that proves to be useful for e-book designing and subsequent exporting of e-book file to PDF format.

How to publish and distribute an e-book?

Having your file ready in the required format such as: PDF, EPUB or MOBI you may start your distribution. You can decide yourself to distribute you e-book free of charge – as it is done in case of scientific papers of published by universities and research centers. You may also decide to charge a fee.

Frequently, the authors use mailing lists or contact list to distribute their free e-books. Usually, an e-book is being sent with a newsletter to all the individuals, that are on the contact list. Process of paid e-book distribution is more difficult and requires more of your attention – in this case you have to accustom yourself with sales automation plug-ins such as: Easy Digital Downloads or WooCommerce.

Now you know how to create an ebook. Follow our “Creating and Selling Digital Products” category to be up to date with more articles in this series.

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Author: Robert Whitney
JavaScript expert and instructor who coaches IT departments. His main goal is to up-level team productivity by teaching others how to effectively cooperate while coding.
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